Tech Tips

Creative Cloud Library

When you’re working on a team of multiple designers, and dozens of different brands, it’s important to build in as many efficiencies as possible. When I first started at Stations, the asset folders were a bit of a mess. There wasn’t any real file organization, and in order to find the assets for a brand you had to comb through multiple old projects to ensure everything was consistent. This took design time away from every project, and in a fast paced environment where I average nearly 100 jobs a month it’s important to be able to utilize every second you get.  

I was talking to my art director about it one day, and it turned out we both had a similar thought to establish a new system. I had used Adobe’s creative cloud library while I was at Imagine, the boutique agency I started my career at, so I was quick to mention that as an option. 

I’ve been doing this job for a while, so I have developed a ton of small efficiencies that add up to allow me to tackle a large volume of projects at an incredibly fast pace. In fact, at the time I was taking on a significantly higher work load compared to the other designers on my team (it happens when you work fast and get bored easy haha). Despite all that, I still had a ton of time on my hands, so I took on the responsibility of overhauling our asset organization system. 

I started by combing through our project archive to collect font and logo files, and created a color sheet for each brand.

Then I went through each brand and made sure there were .eps, png, and jpg files of all logos, as well as full color, single color, and reverse logos of each. 

Once I was satisfied with the new organization on our local server, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on the CC Library integration. 

But Meagan, you may ask, why do you need the library if you have all the assets on a server? I’m so glad you asked! 

A physical server is great to keep all our assets, old and new. It holds the history of each brand, all our photos, and every completed project’s art files. An online library, on the other hand, is great for active work. Adobe has their libraries built right into their programs, meaning you have easy access to all the brand files while you’re actively designing. You can pull font and paragraph styles with one click, significantly cutting down time formatting text. With another click you can easily pull brand colors and patterns. Plus logo assets can easily be added to any project just by dragging and dropping. 

One thing to consider about using a library, however, is that you will get broken links if you share the working files with designers outside your team. We didn’t really experience much of an issue with that because we package our art before sending it to anyone, and that process pulls assets from the online library and adds it to the “links” and “document fonts” folders that are generated during the packaging process. 

If your design team handles a large volume of projects and brands, then I highly recommend considering taking the time to develop an Adobe library. It has proven so incredibly helpful for our team, and cuts down on training as new hires can jump right into a project without having to dig through the archive to get familiar with the brand. It’s also a valuable backup when our local server is having issues connecting, allowing us to keep up our production pace while the tech team tries to fix the server. 

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Tech Tips
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Tech Tips

Creative Cloud Library

When you’re working on a team of multiple designers, and dozens of different brands, it’s important to build in as many efficiencies as possible. When I first started at Stations, the asset folders were a bit of a mess. There wasn’t any real file organization, and in order to find the assets for a brand you had to comb through multiple old projects to ensure everything was consistent. This took design time away from every project, and in a fast paced environment where I average nearly 100 jobs a month it’s important to be able to utilize every second you get.  

I was talking to my art director about it one day, and it turned out we both had a similar thought to establish a new system. I had used Adobe’s creative cloud library while I was at Imagine, the boutique agency I started my career at, so I was quick to mention that as an option. 

I’ve been doing this job for a while, so I have developed a ton of small efficiencies that add up to allow me to tackle a large volume of projects at an incredibly fast pace. In fact, at the time I was taking on a significantly higher work load compared to the other designers on my team (it happens when you work fast and get bored easy haha). Despite all that, I still had a ton of time on my hands, so I took on the responsibility of overhauling our asset organization system. 

I started by combing through our project archive to collect font and logo files, and created a color sheet for each brand.

Then I went through each brand and made sure there were .eps, png, and jpg files of all logos, as well as full color, single color, and reverse logos of each. 

Once I was satisfied with the new organization on our local server, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on the CC Library integration. 

But Meagan, you may ask, why do you need the library if you have all the assets on a server? I’m so glad you asked! 

A physical server is great to keep all our assets, old and new. It holds the history of each brand, all our photos, and every completed project’s art files. An online library, on the other hand, is great for active work. Adobe has their libraries built right into their programs, meaning you have easy access to all the brand files while you’re actively designing. You can pull font and paragraph styles with one click, significantly cutting down time formatting text. With another click you can easily pull brand colors and patterns. Plus logo assets can easily be added to any project just by dragging and dropping. 

One thing to consider about using a library, however, is that you will get broken links if you share the working files with designers outside your team. We didn’t really experience much of an issue with that because we package our art before sending it to anyone, and that process pulls assets from the online library and adds it to the “links” and “document fonts” folders that are generated during the packaging process. 

If your design team handles a large volume of projects and brands, then I highly recommend considering taking the time to develop an Adobe library. It has proven so incredibly helpful for our team, and cuts down on training as new hires can jump right into a project without having to dig through the archive to get familiar with the brand. It’s also a valuable backup when our local server is having issues connecting, allowing us to keep up our production pace while the tech team tries to fix the server. 

Post Views: 11
Tech Tips